Part 9 (2/2)
So, the All-Great were the All-Loving too-- So through the thunder co ”O heart I made, a heart beats here!
Face, my hands fashi+oned, see it in myself!
Thou hast no power nor ave thee, with myself to love, And thou must love me who have died for thee!”
Science has at least soely potent
A nineteenth-century sceptic's exposition of his Christian faith is the paradoxical subject of _Bishop Blougray_, and it is one which adenius which leaned towards intellectual casuistry But the poem is not only skilful casuistry--and casuistry, let it be re falsehood but of detere of doubt; a draue with an appropriate _mise en scene_; a display of fence and thrust which as a piece of art and wit rewards an intelligent spectator That Cardinal Wiseman sat for the Bishop's portrait is a matter of little consequence; the merit of the study is independent of any connection with an individual; it answers delightfully the cynical--yet not wholly cynical--question: How, for our gain in both worlds, can we best econoo far?[69] The nineteenth century is not precisely the age of the eneral turn to politics and to science; Bishop Blougrahts with beasts, it is on this occasion with a very small one, a lynx of the literary tribe, and in the arena of his own dining-room over the after-dinner wine He is pre-eminently a man of his time, when the cross and its doctrine can be comfortably borne; both he and his table-companion, honoured for this one occasion only with the episcopal invitation, appreciate the good things of this world, but the Bishop has a vast advantage over the htsoe, it must be confessed, to the full We are in coreat Bishop roll out, with easy affluence, his long cruhtfully subtle; concealing hi the pea of truth dexterously under the three gilded thi and amiably contemptuous; a little feline, for he allows his adversary a moment's freedom to escape and then pounces upon him with the soft-furred claws; assured of his superiority in the ga with one ariven to his antagonist; or shall we say chess-playing blindfold and seeing every piece upon the board? Is _Bishop Blougray_ a poem at all? soh it we enial inventions--the great Bishop hiadibs were not present we could never have seen hile at which he presents hi play with truths and half-truths and quarter-truths, adapted to a save us a Montaigne, and the seventeenth century a Pascal Why should not the nineteenth century of mundane comforts, of doubt troubled by faith, and faith troubled by doubt, produce a new type--serious yet hu's o with one who like Blougras realised on earth; one who declines--at least as he represents his which he cannot attain but 's intellectual interest is great in seeing all that a Blougram can say for hiainst the position of a Gigadibs what he says may really be effective The Bishop frankly admits that the unqualified believer, the enthusiast, is ram, is what he is, and all that he can do is to make the most of the nature allotted to him That there has been a divine revelation he cannot absolutely believe; but neither can he absolutely disbelieve Unbelief is sterile; belief is fruitful, certainly for this world, probably for the next, and he elects to believe Having chosen to believe, he cannot be too pronounced and decisive in his faith; he will never attempt to eliminate certain articles of the _credenda_, and so ”decrassify” his faith, for to this process, if once begun, there is no end; having donned his uniforles and all True, he has at times his chill fits of doubt; but is not this the probation of faith? Does not a life evince the ultimate reality that is within us? Are not acts the evidence of a final choice, of a deepest conviction? And has he not given his vote for the Christian religion?
With me faith means perpetual unbelief Kept quiet like the snake 'neath Michael's foot, Who stands calm just because he feels it writhe
When the tiras Is not the best pledge of his capacity for future adaptation to a new environ in the world he is worldly? We e of evolution by for ever projecting ourselves half way into the next So rolls on the argument to its triumphant conclusion--
Fool or knave?
Why needs a bishop be a fool or knave When there's a thousand diahts between?
Only at the last, were it not that we know that there is a firram than this on which he takes his stand in after-dinner controversy, weto its uses the title of a pasley and Newht after all?” Worsted in sword-play he certainly was; but the soul may have its say, and the soul, arer
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 63: Letters of RB and EBB, i 388]
[Footnote 64: Mrs Orr's Handbook to Browning's Works, 266, note For the horse, see stanzas xiii xiv of the poem]
[Footnote 65: This poeh for the infinite, which no human love can satisfy But the si a love alether coht a few years later in reat]
[Footnote 67: Mrs Andrew Crosse, in her article, ”John Kenyon and his Friends” (_Tes were living in Florence, Kenyon had begged them to procure for him a copy of the portrait in the Pitti of Andrea del Sarto and his wife Mr Browning was unable to get the copy made with any promise of satisfaction, and so wrote the exquisite poem of Andrea del Sarto--and sent it to Kenyon!”]
[Footnote 68: The writer of this volu his transposition of the chronological places of Fra Lippo Lippi and Masaccio (”Hulking Toorously ht; but recent students do not support his contention At the sa spoke of ”Swedish Boehed the error and altered the text to ”Ger maintained to Gavan Duffy that his treatenerous]
Chapter X
Close of Mrs Browning's Life
When _Men and Woain in Paris An impulsive friend had taken an apart east, and in all that concerned comfort splendidly mendacious After so was conveyed to less glittering but more hospitable roo Robert carried , over face and respirator in woollen shawls No, he wouldn't set me down even to walk up the fiacre steps, but shovedbundle”[70] Happily the winter was of a h_ in ”a sort of _furia_,” and Browning set hi and revising _Sordello_: ”I lately gave time and pains,” he afterwards told Milsand in his published dedication of the poeht,--instead of what the fewat first, and therefore leave as I find it”--proud but warrantable words Soorous and not unsuccessful efforts in drawing At the theatre he saw Ristori as Medea and admired her, but with qualifications At Monckton Milnes's dinner-table he e Sand croith an ivy-wreath and ”looking like herself” Mrs Browning records with pleasure that her husband's hostility to the French government had waned; at least he admitted that he was sick of the Opposition
In May 1856 tidings from London of the illness of Kenyon caused hiladly have hastened to attend upon so true and dear a friend, but this Kenyon would not per were in occupation of Kenyon's house in Devonshi+re Place, which he had lent to theht for restoration of his health in the Isle of Wight On the day that Mr Barrett heard of his daughter's arrival he ordered his fa once more wrote to him, but the letter received no answer ”Mama,” said little Pen earnestly, ”if you've been very, very naughty I advise you to go into the room and say,'_Papa, I'll be dood_'” But the situation, as Mrs Browning sadly confesses, was hopeless Some coained by a swift departure froust for Ventnor whither the Wi its master behind, had been banished, and there ”a happy sorrowful teeks” were spent At Cowes a grief awaited Browning and his wife, for they found Kenyon kind as ever but grievously broken in health and depressed in spirits A short visit to Mrs Browning's land Before the end of October they were on their way to Florence ”The Brownings are long gone back norote Dante Rossetti in Dece resort where I never felt unhappy How large a part of the real world, I wonder, are those two s e and hardly needing a double bed at the inn”